Wolfenstein is the direct sequel to Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Spear of Destiny/Wolfenstein RPG. It featured a "re-imagined" disguised dark-haired B.J. Blazkowicz, retaining the unshaven look seen in Return to Castle Wolfenstein and dressed in civilian clothes rather than his usual military uniform. The game mainly consists of the player shooting his way through hordes of different types of Nazis, ranging from normal soldier to ninjas. To deal with the large amount of enemies, the player has access to many typical WWII-weapons like the German MP40 or K98 rifle. In addition, during the course of the game he finds the medallion and learns four powers. While at first entering the Veil only allows him so see enemies more clearly and use strange flying creatures as bombs, he is later able to slow down time, surround himself with a protective shield or make himself stronger. However, the medallion's powers drain its energy, which needs to be refilled at power-spots that are nearly invisible in the real world.
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The core gameplay is really fun. I like the arsenal of weaponry and the gore system in this game is super satisfying. You can burn, electrocute, vaporize and straight up blow Nazis up and all of that just FEELS good. It's the spaces in between all of the burning and blowing up that brings this game down. The open world city of Isenstadt is just plain dull and barely incentives or appropriately rewards players for exploration. I missed the stealth element from the previous game, an omission that feels weird given how much more the environment design lends itself to sneaking around than it's prequel.
Ultimately, it's a very monotonous experience. Games like Bioshock already had a very similar gameplay system while also providing an incredibly rich environment and profound writing, neither of which is available here. It's occasionally fun but, on the whole, very forgettable.
Definitely didn't deserve the hate it got, and I'm sad that the only way to experience this is via physical formats. Really wish Id would re-release this. It may not be for all super hardcore Wolfenstein and DOOM fans, but it's got its own charm and appeal.
The supernatural stuff is really neat set dressing for a game set in this time period. I kinda wish it were used more. Hopefully, people will revisit this game and realize that it had some great ideas.
Then after the first hub, the game was clearly rushed, the second hub has nowhere near as much thought put into it or content at all for that matter. The levels start to drag and suffer as a result.
The final boss of the game was super frustrating for me as well, could be a skill issue or some weird animation bugs at high frame rates but he took me a hot minute to beat on Hard mode.
Definitely an interesting game though and underrated, the first chunks of it anyway. Can we get Raven out of the COD mines now?